The Magic of Thinking Big covers a wide range of ideas on what contributes to success. At a high level, the ideas split into two categories: 1) mindset, 2) behavior.
Success Requires Believing in Yourself
Success means something different for all of us because we all have different goals. But regardless of the goal, successful people have one thing in common: they believe in themselves. Disbelief in your own abilities makes failure a self-fulfilling prophecy. In contrast, believing in yourself generates the energy to achieve your goal and overcome obstacles.
What Does Thinking Big Mean?
“Thinking big” means not limiting your possibilities — knowing you are capable of reaching lofty goals and achieving success. There are four key strategies to thinking big:
Stop Making Excuses
Unsuccessful people make excuses about why things haven’t worked out. They blame their health, or say their age is holding them back. They blame their lack of intelligence or luck.
Big thinkers don’t fall back on these common excuses. Instead, they focus on what they can do, not what they can’t. They don’t let circumstances hold them back, and use setbacks to propel themselves forward.
Build the Confidence Habit and Kill Fear
Everyone faces fear at some point. Fear in all its forms — worry, tension, embarrassment, anxiety and panic — can be crippling, blocking you from reaching your goals.
Successful people know that confidence is the antidote to fear, and confidence is a habit anyone can develop. Big thinkers first isolate their specific fear and pinpoint what exactly is making them afraid. Then they take some form of action to conquer that fear.
Other techniques for conquering fear include thinking positively, gaining an understanding of people, making moral choices, and showing confidence even if you don’t feel it.
Think Creatively
Big thinkers don’t just amass knowledge. They think creatively. Creative thinking is about finding innovative solutions to problems. There are six steps to develop creative thinking:
By Default, Take Action
There are a lot of great ideas and plans floating around out there, but if you don’t act, nothing will happen. Successful people take decisive action on their ideas. Action-takers understand that:
Find a Victory in Every Setback
Highly successful people use setbacks as fuel and motivation to move forward. Successful people handle setbacks productively:
Set Specific Goals for a Motivating Target
Goals are energizing and motivating. They give you a target to work toward, and you work harder than if you’re aimless. Big thinkers set and achieve goals with these key strategies:
Create a Magnetic Attitude
Your facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language all convey your attitude. Other people pick up on your attitude; if it’s negative, you drag yourself down and look bad in the process. Successful people convey three attitudes:
Think Like a Successful Leader
Successful people are often in leadership positions, but they didn’t get there alone or by luck. They have the support and cooperation of others.To develop as a leader, follow four guidelines:
Make Your Environment First Class
Your mind is a product of your environment: the people you surround yourself with, the clothes you wear, the neighborhood you live in, the food you eat. Your environment changes how you think. Improve your environment to improve how you think.
What is success? It means something different for all of us because we all have different goals. But if you look at people you view as successful, regardless of their goals, you’ll see they all have one thing in common: They believe in themselves. They believe in their abilities. They believe they can accomplish their goals, no matter what obstacles arise.
Believing in yourself isn’t about wishful thinking, though many people confuse the two. You can’t simply wish yourself into a promotion or a bigger home. You can, however, fuel yourself with an “I know I can do it” attitude, which creates the energy needed to propel you forward. With the right attitude, you’ll observe how other people succeed, and you’ll see all the opportunities for yourself to succeed. The “how” comes naturally if you believe you can do it.
When you’re talking with someone who has failed, you may often hear, “I had a feeling it wouldn’t work out,” or, “I wasn’t really surprised it failed.” From the very beginning, these ventures were seeded with failure.
When you start out with a mindset of, “I’ll give it a try but it probably won’t work,” you’ve already given up. You have a subconscious will to fail. Because you don’t truly believe, you find more and more reasons to support your lack of belief — more reasons to give up. If you believe you can’t do big things, you won’t do big things. If you believe you’re worth little, you’ll receive little. Disbelief causes our opinion of ourselves and our possibilities to shrink.
This also affects how the world sees you. Others see us as we see ourselves, so we shrink in the view of others. If we don’t think we can do it, others certainly will agree. This makes it harder to attract other people to you.
Here’s what happens when you believe in yourself and adopt an “I know I can do it” attitude:
In summary, “whether you think you can, or you think you can't—you're right.”
The most important part of developing a belief in yourself is controlling your thoughts. Think of your mind as a thought factory producing endless thoughts every day. This factory has two foremen: Mr. Triumph and Mr. Defeat. They are both extremely hard workers who are at your beck and call. Send the slightest signal to either one and he will snap to attention.
If you think, “Oh boy, today is off to a bad start,” Mr. Defeat springs into action. He’ll manufacture tons of thoughts to prove you right. “It’s too hot.” “You have too much to do.” “You’re probably getting sick.” Soon it’s a really bad day. Negative thought production goes into overdrive.
But if you start out telling yourself, “This is going to be a great day,” you signal Mr. Triumph. He manufactures positive thoughts. “It is a lovely day; we’re going to get so much done!”
If you let him, Mr. Defeat will endlessly produce reasons that you’ll fail at something. Likewise, Mr. Triumph will manufacture reasons that you’ll succeed.
The only path to true success involves firing Mr. Defeat, then using Mr. Triumph to handle 100% of your thought processes. Whatever thought enters your mind, call Mr. Triumph into action to spin that thought in a positive direction — and manufacture more positive thoughts.
Keeping Mr. Triumph at hand, here are three guidelines toward developing the power of belief:
You need the tools to create a plan for your own self-development and growth. This book does three things:
The book is just a static set of principles. How it can really come alive is to apply it to the world around you. After digesting this book, you can view success and failure through a new lens. You can see what makes certain people around you so successful, and what differentiates them from the merely mediocre.
To hone your skills of human observation, here’s a tip: Think about the most successful person you personally know, and the most unsuccessful. As you read through the principles in this book, observe how closely the successful person models the principles and strategies outlined here. Notice how and where the more unsuccessful person falls short.
This exercise will help you see success principles in action, and serve as evidence that these ideas really work.
Use this exercise to replace a “defeat” mindset with a “triumph” mindset.
Think of an area of your life where Mr. Defeat tends to run your thought process. What does Mr. Defeat say in your head?
Do these thoughts tend to multiply, where one negative thought causes another? How do you end up feeling?
The next time Mr. Defeat shows up in this situation, how will you call up Mr.. Triumph instead? (Remember: use positive self-talk, don’t compare yourself to others, and think success.)
Unsuccessful people have a tendency to make excuses about why things haven’t worked out. But if you look at successful people, you find they may have experienced those same roadblocks, but they don’t dwell on them. They don’t make excuses. The roadblocks weren’t even a factor.
The author calls the tendency to make excuses the “disease of excusitis.” Like a physical disease, excusitis can get progressively worse. At first, the person might know the excuse is just a convenient lie - but the more she repeats it, the more she believes it. Soon, she uses that excuse to justify every problem in her life, instead of taking responsibility and solving the problem.
People tend to make excuses centered around four areas: health, intelligence, age, and luck.
We’ll look at each area in detail, but the pattern is this: people use personal traits they can’t change as excuses for not trying. To overcome this, invert your attitude: don’t waste time regretting what you don’t have; instead, make the most of what you do have.
A disadvantage with the right attitude will beat an advantage with the wrong attitude.
What it is: You surrender to your health woes and use an illness or condition as an excuse to stop reaching for your goals. “I’ve now got this disease - my life will never be the same.” “I don’t have the energy/health to do what I really want to do.”
Why this thinking is flawed: There’s no such thing as a perfect human specimen. We all have, or will have, a physical limitation. It’s our attitude about our health that matters. We can dwell on our ailments, falling victim to “health excusitis,” or we can keep a positive attitude and keep moving toward our goals.
You can imagine someone with heart disease who puts his life on pause and becomes depressed. Contrast this with another person who recently had a pacemaker installed who is bursting with energy and vitality, ready to pursue his dreams, grateful to get a second shot at life. The first person surrendered to health excusitis, while the second person remained optimistic and positive.
The author shares a story about a golfer friend who had an arm amputated. No one would’ve blamed him if he gave up his sport, but instead he remained positive, upbeat and determined. He worked on perfecting his swing, and others marveled at how he became better than most two-armed golfers. The golfer said, “It’s my experience that the right attitude and one arm will beat the wrong attitude and two arms every time.” People with an actual disadvantage but the right attitude will always beat someone without the disadvantage but with a bad attitude.
How to Cure Health Excusitis:
What it is: You overestimate the intelligence of others and underestimate your own intelligence. You think you’re not smart enough for a certain career or opportunity. Unlike other forms of excusitis, people with intelligence excusitis often suffer in silence, feeling their perceived inadequacy deep down.
When you suffer from intelligence excusitis, you sell yourself short and miss opportunities. You use your perceived lack of smarts as an excuse not to try new things.
Why this thinking is flawed: What really matters is not how much intelligence you have, but how you choose to use what intelligence you have. To flesh out this idea:
In summary, intelligent people with the wrong attitude can fail. Less intelligent people with the right attitude can really succeed.
How to Cure Intelligence Excusitis:
What it is: You think you’re too old or too young for a certain job or opportunity. The “old” form is more common, leading people to believe it’s too late for them to try a new challenge. They think they’re washed up and unable to learn new things, so there’s no point in even trying. You can try saying, “You’re only as old as you feel,” and they’d likely respond, “But I feel old!”
Why this thinking is flawed: How old you are isn’t important. It’s your attitude about your age that determines your success.
No matter how old you are, you still have time left. Many people stay productive into their 70’s. Even if you’re 50, you still have decades left. Are you going to let 20 years go by moaning about your age?
The author’s relative wandered from job to job and never truly found fulfillment. At the age of 45, he decided to go for his long-held dream of becoming a minister, despite his fears of being too old to start something so new and different. He struck forward on this dream, made it happen, and realized he still had decades to spend in this ideal job.
Once again, an old person with the right attitude will beat a young person with the wrong attitude.
How to Cure Age Excusitis:
For Youth Excusitis: For the people who view being too young as a problem, the answer is similar: youth is a liability only when your attitude is wrong. Gain confidence in your abilities and what you have to offer in any situation. If you can do the job, people won’t care how old you are.
What it is: You think things just don’t go your way, that you’re a victim of bad circumstances. When you look at successful people, you just think they got lucky. You ignore all the hard work and character traits that got them there.
Why this thinking is flawed: When you suffer from bad luck excusitis, you don’t take into account the hard work that goes into success. You don’t understand that your own mistakes may have created missed opportunities.
Luck excusitis is a dead end. When you dismiss someone else’s success as merely the result of luck, you don’t discover a solution to your problems. You can’t reproduce someone else’s “luck.” But you can learn the habits of successful people (hard work, attitude) and emulate them to improve your situation. Isn’t this a more productive way to solve your problems?
The author uses this analogy: suppose General Motors were to reorganize the entire company on the basis of luck, placing names in a hat and randomly drawing for president, vice-president and so on. This would be the world if luck were really the major factor in success. This is ridiculous, right? Rather than luck, people who rise to the top in any organization get there because of attitude, ability, and hard work.
How to Cure Bad Luck Excusitis:
The book mentions four common areas of excusitis, but the principles apply to any excuse you give for not succeeding. Examples include:
While there’s likely some truth to your excuse, you also often can’t change the past, nor can you easily change some circumstances. Don’t use these as excuses for not trying.
Again, to overcome this, invert your attitude: don’t waste time regretting what you don’t have; instead, make the most of what you do have. The right attitude with the disadvantage will beat the wrong attitude with the advantage.
Stop using excuses to limit yourself. Use this exercise to vaccinate yourself against excusitis.
What excuse do you use often to justify your own lack of success? Describe what goal you want, and what excuse you use to explain why you haven’t succeeded.
How can you invert your thinking to focus on the positive? Focus on what you do have. Think about ways to compensate for your apparent disadvantage.
As far as your excuse is concerned, what is within your ability to change? What can you do actively to overcome your excuse?
Fear in all its forms — worry, tension, embarrassment, anxiety and panic — is crippling, paralyzing you from taking action and blocking your success. Fear is real, and no amount of advice such as, “Don’t worry,” or “There’s nothing to be afraid of” will cure us of fear.
Why is fear so self-defeating? Think of an infection in your body. If left untreated, it spreads unabated, causing more physical harm and pain and damaging more and more areas of your body. Fear is an infection of the mind, and when it spreads it stops you from taking chances and jumping on opportunities. It blocks your chances at success. Fear stops you from speaking up when you have something to say, and its incarnations such as anxiety and stress can actually make you physically sick.
So how do we treat this mental infection of fear and stop its spread? Confidence is the antidote to fear, and the good news is that confidence is a skill you can develop. No one is born totally confident. Confident people acquire that confidence over time — and you can too.
There are five steps to take to build the confidence habit:
This step has two parts. First, isolate your fear. What exactly are you afraid of? Describe it in very specific terms.
Next, take action. There’s an action to counterattack any type of fear. Prompt, decisive action conquers fear. Postponing and procrastinating is like pouring fertilizer on fear, helping it grow.
Think of a sales executive terrified of losing her job amid plunging profits and a tenuous company atmosphere. She may think there’s nothing to do but hope for the best, but hope is not enough to change the situation or remove her fear. Instead, she could take action.
In all cases, she is taking back control of her life and doing something about her situation. Fear conquered.
There is some kind of action for every fear.
Isolate your fear and take action.
Think of your brain as a bank, where you make thought deposits and thought withdrawals. Your inner bank teller is very responsive, ready to deliver whatever memory you call upon as thought evidence. Feeling inadequate in the face of a big decision? Your “teller” will swiftly supply you with past failures, remind you of the people who didn’t like you, and offer up a slew of your worst mistakes.
But what if you call upon your inner teller to bolster your confidence? She’ll eagerly remind you of the excellent choices you made in similar situations, how much confidence others have placed in you in the past, and what a great job you did last time you faced a crisis.
Deposit only positive thoughts in your memory bank, and withdraw only positive thoughts. While driving alone and before you go to sleep at night, make it a point to recall positive, successful experiences. Think about your victories of the day, big and small. This will help condition you to bring positive memories to the forefront.
When you keep thinking about a negative past experience — a jilted romance, a job failure, losing money on a bad investment — you are essentially “putting fertilizer” on the memory, allowing it to grow and become a huge negative force in your life. Even the most successful people have been in discouraging and embarrassing situations, but they don’t dwell on them.
While you can’t change a bad experience, you can try to see it in a different light. You can help unpleasant memories to shrivel, making it harder for your inner teller to access them.
Fear of other people is debilitating for confidence. It’s hard to project confidence when you are self-conscious or shy, cowering on the sidelines. Overcoming this fear is vital, because it holds you back from opportunities, relationships, and new experiences.
How do you overcome a fear of other people?
Conscience and confidence are tied together. A guilty conscience destroys self-confidence. When you know you’ve done something wrong, it’s hard to act normally and confidently - your brain doesn’t seem to believe you deserve it.
The author comments that many criminals are caught not because they left clues, but because they act guiltily and self-consciously after the crime. This aberrant behavior put them on the suspect list.
Acting immorally not only destroys your own self-confidence, it destroys the confidence that others have in you.
To be confident, act along your conscience. Don’t do anything your conscience tells you not to. If you behave only in ways that you know are right, you’ll feel confident and proud.
To think confidently, you must act confidently. Think of the old adage “fake it ‘til you make it.” For example, if you’re shy and timid when you meet new people, conquer that by acting as a confident person would: reach for the other person’s hand, clasp it firmly, make eye contact and say, “It’s nice to meet you.” Doing this often enough will banish your fear of meeting new people.
Five tips to act your way into feeling truly confident:
Use this exercise to pinpoint a fear and begin to replace that fear with confidence.
Think of a specific fear you carry. Pinpoint it. What exactly is making you afraid? What are you worried about?
Every fear has an action to cure it. What is one simple action you can take to combat this fear? Refer back to the chapter if you could use ideas.
You are bigger, more important, more capable and worthier than you think. Where success is concerned, being “big” isn’t measured in inches or degrees or family background. Rather, it’s measured by the size of your thinking. How big do your ambitions get? How confident are you in your abilities?
Unfortunately, many people can’t see themselves as the boss, or in that big house, or in that career. They settle for less and sell themselves short.
What’s wrong with thinking small? When you think small, you miss out on opportunities.
When you think too small, you become focused on your inabilities, and you don’t seem to recognize your abilities. (Being aware of your inabilities is healthy, it’s fixating on them that’s problematic.)
When you think big, you are fully aware of your abilities. You have the self-respect and confidence to know you’re worthy of the job, the relationship, or the promotion. You know your possibilities are endless.
Five strategies to help you think big:
It’s easy to fixate on your weaknesses and ignore your strengths. This can be self-limiting, if you feel less capable than you really are.
To accept your full worth and stop selling yourself short, try this fun exercise. It helps you do a reality check and realize just how capable you really are.
When you’re done, you’ll see that you score better in certain areas than even highly successful people you admire. You have concrete proof that you’re bigger than you think. This is inspiration to fit your thinking to your true size.
To become a big thinker, we must develop a “big thinker’s vocabulary.” This isn’t about using big words — it’s using words that paint a picture of positivity and success.
First, it’s important to understand that when you speak or write, you are essentially painting a picture in the minds of others. If someone tells you, “Carol bought a house,” one picture comes to mind. But if they said, “Carol bought a garden cottage,” another picture entirely comes to mind. Words have power to create images.
Big thinkers use words that paint a positive, hopeful picture. A small thinker might say, “I’m sorry to say this project has failed.” But a big thinker would say something like, “We’re going to try a new approach with a great chance of succeeding.” In the first instance, the listeners likely felt defeated and sad. In the second, they would feel more encouraged and ready to try again.
There are four ways to develop a big thinker’s vocabulary.
Big thinkers have trained themselves to see the possibilities in a situation, in business, in themselves, and in other people. They see what can be, not just what is. A big thinker visualizes what can be done in the future. They aren’t limited to today’s reality.
“Seeing what can be possible” applies to business opportunities. For example, think of a huge plot of land for sale in the countryside. A small-thinking realtor would market a large plot of land, period. But a big-thinking realtor or developer might see and market this land as a farm, a horse-riding venue, a wedding venue, a luxury rural getaway — the possibilities are endless.
“Seeing what can be possible” applies to how you treat customers. A small thinker sees a customer as one $20 transaction. But a big thinker sees the possibility of a lifetime of repeat business that, with referrals, can grow into thousands of dollars a year in revenue. Big thinkers see the possibilities in every customer and every sales transaction.
“Seeing what can be possible” applies to how you see yourself. Big thinkers see themselves as they can be, not just as they are at present. A small thinker might see herself as a student. A big thinker, however, sees herself as an up-and-coming, breakthrough photographer. When you see the possibilities in yourself, you begin to understand that it isn’t what you have today that’s important, it’s what you’re planning to accomplish.
“Seeing what can be possible” applies to how you see other people. People are an enormous and valuable resource. For example, a small-thinking teacher might look at a kid with poor grades who’s always in trouble as someone not worth her time. But a big-thinking teacher could see a smart child with unique talent who needs nurturing to become a leader, and who might be grateful for life.
To practice seeing the world in terms of possibilities, adopt a “add value” attitude. Think, “what can I do to add value to this situation/to another person/to myself?” This positive thinking gets you to imagine the improvements that are possible.
Many people view their job as dead end. They adopt a philosophy of, “I’m here for the paycheck.” They do just enough to complete their work adequately. This is an example of small thinking.
Big thinkers think their job is always important. They find ways to make a difference, big or small. Big thinkers see themselves as members of a team. They act as if everything in a company or organization affects them. They see the end goals and see themselves as a critical part of the organization reaching those goals.
When you apply this “big view” to your work, you’ll find yourself coming up with new, creative ideas for making things better. This attitude will undoubtedly be noticed and rewarded with praise and more responsibility, and your self-confidence will skyrocket.
Too often, people with enormous potential let insignificant, petty, small stuff get in their way. When you let this happen, you’re thinking small.
Here are a few examples, with how to shrug off small annoyances:
Learn how to think bigger about yourself.
Write down your five best “assets.” Pick things that your trusted friends and colleagues would agree with.
Then, for each asset, list one to three successful people you know who don’t have this asset to as high a degree as you.
What does this mean about your abilities? Your potential for success? How do you feel now?
Let’s stop sweating the small stuff. What is something small you’re currently obsessing over that really doesn’t contribute to your goals? What should you use that time for instead?
Creative thinking is about finding innovative solutions to problems, employing new and improved ways to do something.
Too often people associate creative thinking with something major, such as writing a novel or inventing some new world-changing device. But give yourself more credit. Anytime you figure out a way to make something better, you are creatively thinking. Stopping an argument before it starts, finding a new way to save money, or streamlining a business task are all examples of creative thinking.
Here are six ways to develop creative thinking.
If you think something can’t be done — liking a person, solving a work problem, creating world peace — your mind goes to work for you, bolstering your arguments and beliefs that this problem is impossible. Your brain shuts down thoughts of a possible solution.
If you truly believe something can be done, your mind also goes to work for you — only this time it finds ways to help you prove a solution is possible. Belief releases creative powers, enabling constructive thinking and bringing inspiration. You find ways to like the annoying coworker, fix the sales problem, or send your child to college.
Here are two tips to help you develop creative power through belief:
Traditional thinking is the belief that there is one, proven way to get something done, and that’s that. When you think like this, nothing gets innovated because you do the same thing over and over again.
Here’s a test - see what your reaction is to the following ideas:
Did you have an instinctively negative reaction? Something like, “no, this is not the way things have been. We shouldn’t change things.” This is a sign of traditional thinking. With this reaction, you constrain your mind, and you don’t give anything permission to change.
Instead, an untraditional thinker person would react by saying, “huh, that’s an interesting idea. Why do you think this?”
When you take on the philosophy that there is no one best way to do anything, you signal your mind to unleash creative thinking and find ways to innovate. There are three ways to fight traditional thinking:
What if Ford Motor Company announced that it had just made the best car ever? “No better car will ever be possible. There is no more need for research, engineering, planning or designing.” With that attitude, the company would shrivel and die.
True success means continuous innovation. It’s true of companies, and it’s true of you as a person.
Successful people always ask themselves, “How can I do better?” Note that it’s not, “Can I do better?” They know they can always do better, it’s just a matter of how.
Seek continuous improvements, in every domain that matters:
When you ask yourself how you can do better, you find the opportunities to improve. Set daily, weekly improvement plans for yourself.
We all sometimes feel like we already have too much on our plates; adding more would be impossible. But don’t let your “busyness” to close yourself off to new opportunities and responsibilities.
Your capacity is far greater than it seems. You have as much capacity as you think you do. When you believe you can do more, you will find ways to do it. If something is important enough to you, you will find ways to make the time and get more efficient.
If your employer needs to find someone who can take on responsibilities, resist saying, “no, I can’t take it on right now.” They’ll find someone else who wants to advance their career. By default, accept additional responsibilities to do more, and be confident you can handle it.
Recall the adage, “if you want something done, ask a busy person.” Busy people are often successful people who accept opportunities to do even more, then figure out creative solutions to make it happen.
Listening is a topic that pops up a few times in The Magic of Thinking Big, underscoring its importance as a trait of successful people.
Small people monopolize the conversation and want to be talking all the time. But they become a one-way outflow of information, never receiving it.
Big people listen intently. Listening to other people’s ideas sparks your own creative ideas.
To strengthen your creativity through listening, there are three tips:
If you’re in the same environment in the same people doing the same things, you’re less likely to encounter new ideas.
To offset this, you must consciously seek out mental stimulation. When exposed to novel information, your brain will spark new ideas. Explore new budding areas of interest, or find new sources of information for your profession. Suggestions on what to do:
Successful people understand that the most rewarding investment is in themselves, and the best time to start investing is now. Invest in your education. Real education is anything that improves your thinking.
If you feel you can’t afford something thought-provoking like a newspaper subscription, ask yourself - can you afford not to?
All these creative-thinking tools we’ve been discussing are designed to spur new ideas. But after you generate ideas, you need to harvest and develop them. Three tips:
Use this exercise to stimulate your creativity.
What is something you want to do, but think it’s impossible? Describe it. Then write down a list of reasons it could be possible (even improbable wishes are fine). Reflect: does it now seem more possible?
What one thing can you improve today? Be specific about what you’re going to do.
Is there anything you want to do, but feel you can’t because you don’t have enough capacity? What is it? If you had to take it on, how could you still juggle everything and make it work?
What is one way you can get more mental stimulation, in areas that interest you? What’s the easiest way to accomplish this?
Have you ever noticed that some people seem to walk around commanding respect from others? Doors are opened, salespeople hover, and coworkers listen to every word. Other people, however, don’t get the same treatment. They can walk around virtually ignored or simply tolerated. What’s the difference?
The author proposes a simple answer: thinking. If you believe, deep down, that you’re not worthy, you’ll act like an unworthy person. This basic feeling of inferiority and lack of confidence will shine through no matter how you to hide it, and others will react to you without a high level of respect.
If, however, you truly believe you are an important and valuable person, you’ll act with importance, carrying yourself with confidence — and others will react to you with respect and deference.
To gain the respect of others, we must first show a high level of self-respect and self-confidence. There are four specific ways we can increase our self-respect so that others can see us as a self-confident and important individual.
Your appearance says volumes about how you feel about yourself and how others perceive you. If you present a careless, slovenly appearance, especially in a job setting, you’ll be perceived as a non-entity. Your appearance is telling others, “Don’t mind me. I’m used to being pushed around.”
If, however, you look your best, you’ll be perceived as someone who is important and capable. Your appearance is saying, “I’m used to being treated with respect.” Others will fall in line and treat you with the respect you're commanding.
Your physical outside influences your mental inside. When kids wear a costume, they start acting the part, whether it’s a superhero or a princess. As adults, we shouldn’t think we’re immune to this effect. If you’re an executive, dressing like an executive makes you feel like one.
Dressing differently also influences how other people perceive you. When you buy produce, you want to buy more attractive, better-packaged produce more than less attractive produce. Other people treat you the same way.
What if money is an issue? You’d love to wear a top-notch suit and think more like an executive, but you simply can’t afford it. Then buy fewer items, but make sure they’re higher quality. You may ultimately spend less because higher-quality items tend to last longer.
(Shortform note: this builds on ideas in Chapter 4.)
Just like your appearance, your attitude toward your work or goal speaks volumes to everyone around you. If you believe your work is important, other people will believe you are important.
There’s a classic story of three bricklayers who are asked what they’re doing.
The third bricklayer showed vision and respect. You can imagine the third one propelling himself to greater heights. You wouldn’t imagine the first two doing that.
If you think your job is pointless, you won’t want to improve anything, and you won’t take responsibility. If you think your job is important, you’ll motivate your brain to unleash ideas on how to do an even better job.
Your attitude about your work (or goal or endeavor) works for people above you and below you:
To be “on top” of any work situation or endeavor, you need to feel like you’re on top, and one of the best ways to feel motivated and enthusiastic is to receive a rousing pep talk. A pep talk plays up your strengths and talks about how you’re going to succeed.
Since most of us don’t have a personal coach standing by, creating our own pep talk is a great substitute. Think of it as a commercial to market yourself to yourself. Here’s how to build your own:
This might sound a little too hokey, and you might feel silly. But no one’s watching you or judging you. If you doubt it, ask the most successful person you know what they think of the idea. (They’ll probably see the value of it, and do some version of it themselves)
When you think like an important person, you are upgrading your thought power and, by default, you will upgrade your actions. You’ll focus your energy on what really matters.
Here are example situations:
If the answer to any of these questions is no, change your behavior act as someone with self-respect and confidence would act. You’ll immediately feel better about yourself and carry yourself with more personal power. You’ll also channel your energy toward what important people do — fulfilling their goals.
Create your own commercial to market yourself to you.
What are your greatest assets? What sets you apart from other people? List up to five.
Now write yourself a commercial using these assets. Pretend you were paid money to get the most people possible to admire this person. Don’t be afraid of feeling corny.
Now say the commercial out loud. Really mean it. Now, how do you feel about yourself?
We’ve all heard the old expression, “you are what you eat.” This means that our well-being is tied directly to the food we use to fuel our bodies.
The author proposes that your mind is also a product of what it is fed, and what feeds your mind is your environment. The people you surround yourself with, the clothes you wear, the neighborhood you live in, and the food you eat all shape you into the person you are.
Most importantly, the size of your thinking, your attitude, and your goals all are the products of your environment, particularly the people around you. If you are surrounded by petty, negative people, you will likely pick up the habits of negative, petty thinking. If you are surrounded by positive, ambitious people, you will begin to reflect those traits, as well.
Your environment changes how you think. Improve your environment to improve how you think.
There are three aspects of your environment to change: your internal environment, your social environment, and your physical environment.
The biggest obstacle to success is thinking you’re just not cut out for any major accomplishment. “Big things are just not in the cards for me.” Too many adults are conditioned toward this sense of mediocrity.
Children don’t dream of someday getting by in a dead-end job. Kids set high goals and fully expect to do exciting, important things. But as they grow up and gain responsibilities, these free-thinking children often become short-sighted adults. They’ve likely been bombarded with the advice of others to “quit dreaming,” and “be practical.” They’re told they’ll never get ahead because they don’t have the luck/money/connections/character traits.
Some people surrender completely to this input. They settle for a job they don’t love and rationalize themselves into a rut from which there’s little chance of escaping.
Others surrender partially at first, holding out hope that someday big things will happen. As time goes by, however, this group loses their fight and decides that greater success isn’t worth the effort.
The third group never surrenders to the “you’ll never accomplish anything big” line of thinking. What’s different about this group? Big thinkers refuse to listen to suppressive talk and advice and instead think about success and drive toward success. They simply don’t listen to anyone who says their goals can’t be accomplished. They’ve developed a defense against the negative opinions of other people, seeing negativity only as an opportunity to prove the naysayers wrong.
Even if you’re not in the third group now, you can get there. You are fully capable of reconditioning yourself for success. (Much of this book is about doing this). It takes a shift in attitude and a deep-seated belief in yourself and your ability to achieve your goals. You have to condition yourself to ignore the poisonous opinions of others, which can be aided by managing your social environment, which we’ll discuss next.
There are several aspects to managing your social environment and creating positive surroundings that will nurture success:
“Negators” are the negative people around you who keep telling you it can’t be done. They laugh at other people who try to get ahead, and they tear down people who make them feel small.
Negators come in many forms. Sometimes these are well-meaning individuals who have been beaten down by life and have good intentions; other times they’re jealous people stuck in a rut who want to trip you and keep you down with them. Sometimes they’re subordinates or colleagues; sometimes they’re supervisors who want to give you their misleading rules to success.
Stay away from all negators. They drag down your thinking, and they introduce seeds of doubt that fuel Mr. Defeat (recall him from Chapter 1).
A few examples of getting away from negators:
Gossip, or negative discussion about people, is like food poisoning. If a restaurant causes just a few cases of food poisoning, word will get out, and people will stay well away.
Similarly, gossip is “thought poisoning.” It wastes your time on petty, negative things about other people. It misrepresents people with misleading hearsay. It makes you feel guilt when you see the person you’re gossiping about. Gossip makes you a small thinker.
Gossip is done by both males and females and can be disguised as productive talk. “He only got the promotion because of politics.” “I found out something juicy about the new manager.” “Don’t tell anybody, but…”
Even worse, if you gossip, successful, positive people will start viewing you as “poison.” Gossip gives off an unlikable and unreliable air that will repel the very people you want to attract on your journey to success.
An analogy: Taking an axe to your neighbor’s furniture doesn’t make your furniture any nicer. So chopping down your neighbor with the verbal axe of gossip doesn’t make you look any better — it only destroys your character. On the other hand, speaking about others with positivity presents a first-class view of you as a quality, positive individual.
Don’t be around people who gossip. They’re small thinkers who will infect you with poison. And when you do talk about people, keep it positive.
Be very careful about where you’re getting your advice. Getting “first-class” advice means seeking the counsel of a knowledgeable and positive source, not someone ready to spew reasons why something can’t be done.
Say you’re starting a new job and someone who’s been there a long time takes you under his wing. His advice: lay low, or you’ll get bombarded with work and you’ll have to stay late. Clearly, if you want to be noticed and succeed in this company, this is terrible advice and this is someone you’d want to get away from fast.
Instead, seek the advice of someone who is already successful in your area of interest. Don’t be intimidated. Successful people tend to be open and eager to help others on their path.
Get advice for your upcoming triathlon from someone who has successfully completed a similar race, not someone on the couch telling you it’s impossible.
“Psychological sunshine” describes positive experiences that nurture your mind. Like fertilizing a crop, positive experiences expand your creativity and improve your emotional happiness.
You have control over designing your experiences as positive or negative. Let’s take a typical weekend. Does it include boredom, mindlessly using the Internet, or a hangover? Or does it include a home-improvement project, quality time with your kids, a hike with your spouse? The first experience is a poor mental diet, the equivalent of junk food. The second experience is a rich mental diet, building things of value.
A few suggestions to pepper your life with psychological sunshine:
Finally, to create an overall “first class” environment, manage your physical environment. In Chapter 6, we discussed how “looking important” and taking care of your appearance was a critical element in “thinking big.” The idea of going first class with your physical environment takes it further to include going first class in every aspect of your environment, not just your clothing and appearance.
To go first-class, spend well. Buy high-quality things that make you feel good about yourself. This includes food, clothing, services, hobbies. If money is an issue, then buy fewer, higher quality things, rather than a mass of low-quality items.
For the sake of saving, we often take shortcuts. We eat at the cheap restaurant or buy the off-brand clothing. We hire an inexpensive accountant or take our car to a mechanic that promises a bargain. But these cost-saving measures can be penny-wise, pound-foolish. The dubious accountant might land us in an IRS audit, while the shady mechanic might damage the car, risking safety and costing more in the long run.
In fact, taking the quality, first-class route often doesn’t cost much more than the cheap route in the long term. In return, you get quality goods and services that make you feel better about yourself, while improving the way you are seen by others.
Is there a negator in your life? It’s time to lose that negative influence.
Think of a person in your life who is often negative. What kinds of things this person say or do?
How do you feel in this negator's presence? How do this person's words and attitudes rub off on you and affect your behavior?
How can you reduce your exposure to this person?
Is there a more positive person or group that would help uplift your mood and attitude? How can you spend more time with these positive people?
It’s time to up your success game by going first class with your buying decisions.
Think about something low-quality and cheap that you own, and something high-quality that you own. How does each make you feel when you use it?
Have you recently had to choose between a budget option and a higher-quality choice? Are you happy with the way things worked out, or do you wish you had opted for quality?
What’s a purchase decision that you’re thinking about now? What are your options, and which one will you choose?
Our facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice betray our thoughts and attitudes. A co-worker sitting slumped at his desk sighing radiates boredom and unhappiness. Another co-worker sitting up, alert, engaged in a discussion conveys energy and interest in what she’s doing.
The second a customer service agent picks up the phone, his tone of voice can convey sincere interest in helping you, or pure disinterest and annoyance.
Our attitudes speak for us, broadcasting disinterest and boredom, or energy and success.
Successful people hone three specific attitudes to help them lead people effectively:
Being activated means being enthusiastic. You have to be enthusiastic if you want anyone else to get excited about your cause. Students will tune out a monotone, unengaged teacher, but an enthusiastic, activated teacher will capture their interest. A fundraiser who is truly passionate about his cause will generate more donations than someone going through the motions.
You want other people to look at you favorably as someone who’s alive, purposeful, and enthusiastic.
You can develop the enthusiasm skill in three ways:
Everyone wants to feel important. Others — customers, employees, friends — react positively to you when you make them feel important. They’ll work harder for you, cooperate more and offer more help.
Three tips on conveying the “You are important” attitude:
By default, think about what you can do for other people. Don’t focus on how you benefit. If you take care of other people, you’ll be taken care of yourself.
You can use this service-first attitude to elevate your personal relationships, as well. Asking yourself “How can I go above and beyond?” for your partner and family will create happier relationships and goodwill.
Boost your enthusiasm toward an aspect of your life you’re lukewarm about.
Is there something in your work or personal life you’re just not that enthusiastic about — but there’s no avoiding it? What is it?
How can you develop more enthusiasm about this subject or activity? (Ideas from the chapter: research it more; practice enthusiasm.)
Try it out. How much more enthusiastic do you feel about it?
Your success in any endeavor depends on the support and acceptance of other people; you’re not going to achieve your goals alone.
To gain this support, you have to be likeable. Likeability is a factor in all aspects of your life, particularly your career. If have the technical skills for a new job but you’re deemed unlikeable, you won't get the position. You have to fit in with other people to achieve success.
Likeable people like other people. They show genuine friendship and kindness to others. You can’t fake likeability or bribe your way into others’ good graces; you’ll end up just creating contempt in the people whose support you’re trying to gain.
To cultivate likeability, successful people:
When you take the initiative to introduce yourself to other people, you build more friendships and relationships, gaining more support.
Successful people go out of their way to meet people and put others at ease. There are six ways to emulate this:
Average people wait for others to introduce themselves. Successful people take the initiative, finding out who the other person is — and making sure that other person knows who they are.
The perfect person doesn’t exist; we’re all human. When you expect perfection from others — coworkers, superiors, family, partners, friends — you set yourself up for disappointment and diminish your likeability.
Learn to go easy on other people:
Picture your mind as a mental broadcasting station with two powerful channels, Channel P (positive) and Channel N (negative). You filter other people through the antenna of Channel P or Channel N.
To grow as a likeable successful person, keep your antenna tuned to Channel P. Guard against being sucked into Channel N when others spew negativity. Change the subject and stay tuned to Channel P.
Listen in on conversations around you. Who is doing the most talking — the more successful person or the least successful person? Successful people let others do the talking. They practice “conversation generosity,” encouraging the other person to speak up about her family, views, and issues.
Conversation generosity is important to likeability:
As a bonus, when you spend more time listening you may become genuinely fascinated by the person’s opinions and worldview (recall that to build an “I’m Activated” attitude, you should learn more about something you find uninteresting).
Dealing with others is easy when everything is going great. The real test comes when things go wrong. But how you think when you lose has a direct effect on when you’ll win again.
When things don’t go your way, don’t blame others. Instead, ask yourself what you can do to improve and better your chances when the next opportunity arises.
Don’t beat yourself up after a setback, either. Learn from the setback and move on with grace. Stay positive and look toward your next opportunity for success.
Learn to tune into “Channel Positive” instead of “Channel Negative.”
Think of a common situation in your life, whether work or personal, where you tend to tune into Channel N, getting your feelings hurt or becoming angry. Why do you think you react this way?
Imagine the next time you run into this situation. How can you stay tuned to Channel P and remain positive and optimistic? What new ways would you interpret the situation?
There are two types of people: Mr. Activationist and Mr. Passivationist. Mr Activationsist is a “doer” who accomplishes big things. Mr. Passivationist is a “don’ter.” He postpones things until they are no longer a viable option.
Mr. Activationist plans a vacation and then takes a vacation. Mr. Passivationist plans a vacation but ends up postponing it indefinitely because the timing isn’t right. Mr. Activationist wants to start a new business venture, so he does. Mr. Passivationist also wants to start a new venture, but talks himself out of it before he ever gives it a shot.
Successful people are Activationists; they have developed the habit of taking action. Mr. Activationist adopts these action-oriented mindsets:
Many Passivationists want to wait for everything to be perfect before they take action. But conditions, timing, and other people are never going to be perfect.
Successful people take action, meet problems as they arise, and work them out creatively along the way.
When we put off our goals because we’re afraid of the potential roadblocks ahead, we do our excellent ideas a disservice. These ideas — what we could have accomplished — can come back to haunt us.
Action destroys fear and creates confidence.
What if you are in a creative profession, such as writing or art? You may think you need inspiration, to wait for the “spirit to move you” to take action.
But inspiration isn’t necessary for action, even in a creative endeavor. Successful people don’t wait for the spirit to move them; instead, they move the spirit. They jump right in and get going.
The key to this is a “mechanical approach.” Simply do the actions that you need to, and the inspiration will come.
“Now” is a magic word — a word of action. Words such as “someday,” “tomorrow,” “after this thing happens,” are words of inaction. Successful people are conditioned to take action now.
Be inspired by the words of Benjamin Franklin: “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”
Beware of a common habit of inaction: preparing to act. Preparing to act is a time-killer that wastes precious energy and resources you could be using to act right now.
This bad habit of preparing to act instead of acting now strikes students, business people, teachers — anyone in any endeavor. It’s a time and energy waster. Successful people break this habit by conditioning themselves to begin the task at hand now, not later. They use their “getting ready” time and energy to get going on their project — right now.
Initiative is taking action without being told to take action. A person who takes initiative is highly sought after in every organization and relationship because they get things done and make things happen.
Successful people have built the habit of taking initiative in their work and personal life. They “take the bull by the horns” and do the things others have ignored or don’t want to deal with.
There are a few ways to practice taking initiative:
Taking initiative helps you become an Activationist. People place great confidence in those who take action — they automatically assume she knows what she’s doing.
Build the habit of taking immediate, decisive action.
Think of something you’ve been putting off. What is it?
Why have you been putting this off? (Have you been waiting for conditions to be perfect? Have you been wasting time planning to act, without acting? Is there a specific fear standing in your way?)
What’s one specific action you can take right now that will cure the dread? After you write this down, do it.
Everyone meets with opposition and setbacks. Unsuccessful people allow these setbacks to defeat them. They use opposition as an excuse to throw in the towel and say it just can’t be done, whether it’s buying a house, starting a business, or getting a promotion.
Successful people, in contrast, use setbacks as motivation to move forward, more determined than ever to reach their goals.
There are three keys to handling setbacks constructively:
Setbacks can be upsetting. Our first impulse is often to quit or react with anger. But reacting emotionally robs us of a chance to learn from that setback.
Successful people pull a small victory out of every defeat. They find the lesson and apply it, learning what went wrong.
“A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in on the experience." - Elbert Hubbard
Similarly, don’t see a setback as a permanent condition that destroys a path for you forever. Learn from it, get better, then try again.
Successful people take detours in stride. They keep going, even if they have to find a new path toward their goals. They know that you don’t need to change your goal when you hit a detour; you just need to find a different route.
When we win, we want to take credit. But when something goes sideways, we tend to look for someone or something else to blame.
We often blame others for our failures.
Others may get in our way at times, but blaming others for setbacks is unproductive. Instead, successful people look inward and become self-critical in a constructive way. Find your weaknesses objectively, then correct them.
But don’t take it too far. Don’t say, “I’m really a failure.” Say, “Now that I learned this, I’m going to become a bigger winner.”
People also like blaming bad luck for failing. Blaming bad luck sucks all your personal responsibility out of the setback. You learn nothing by blaming bad luck, because there’s nothing you can do better next time.
Persistence is important in becoming successful. You have to keep trying, learning and growing. But when you’re trying to become a person who bounces back stronger and better after a setback, persistence isn’t enough. You need to experiment with your approach, trying new things to get better success the next time.
There are three ways to develop a greater willingness to experiment:
Salvage something from a recent failure.
What’s a recent setback that you’ve had? Describe it.
Do you blame someone or something else for the setback? Why do you feel this way?
Instead of blaming someone else, look at yourself. What could you have done better in this situation? What can you improve in the future?
Switch up your approach to an old problem.
Think of a goal, whether work or personal, that you are dedicated to and persistent about, but that is not working out as successfully as you’d hoped. What is your current process?
Now experiment. How can you alter your approach? What new thing haven’t you tried that might be more successful?
Without goals, we stumble around, surviving day to day but never truly knowing where we are going. Goals set a specific target for you to aim toward. You know where to direct your effort, and you aim for concrete results.
If you walked up to an airline ticket counter and said, “Give me a ticket,” the agent wouldn’t know how to help you. You can’t buy the ticket until you know your destination. It’s the same with your life goals. You can’t get started until you know where you want to go.
Think of yourself like a business. Businesses plan ahead, researching and developing new products and services, keeping an eye on changing trends. They have a plan for how to respond to new conditions, and they set goals to target.
Successful people are like businesses, with talents and skills as the products. Success depends on developing yourself, producing product, and marketing yourself. Like a business, you need a long-term plan to do this effectively.
When you set goals, don’t be afraid to be ambitious. Don’t be intimidated by your past or where you are today. Don’t think small thoughts like, “look at where I am now - there’s no way I can reach my goal.” Your current situation don’t matter when you set a goal. What’s important is where you want to go.
Here’s how successful people treat goals:
No matter how big or small, goals have incredible power. Focusing on a goal immediately boosts energy, cures boredom, and unleashes physical power. Think of a weekend morning when you wake up with nothing to do. Sounds nice, but on days like this we accomplish little. When we wake up with a plan, we get things done.
Small goals on a daily and weekly basis keep us going and accomplishing. Salespeople have quotas that define what they need to sell, keeping them motivated and on task. Teachers set deadlines to motivate students to work efficiently. We accomplish what we plan to accomplish.
On a larger level, goals can help keep us alive, literally and figuratively. Think of the retiree who views retirement as the end of purposeful living. Having nothing to strive for is a recipe for depression. But the retiree who jumps in to new projects and interests and continues with her passions will thrive.
The work, home and social aspects of your life are all important, but your career has the strongest influence on the other areas. Career success funds the standard of living that supports our home and social lives, so it’s important to set the right career goals.
So how do you pick the right career?
There is one factor that determines career success: desire. If you follow a path toward a career you’re not passionate about, you set yourself up for mediocrity.
But if can harness a true, burning desire, you unleash power and energy. Success requires an all-consuming, heart-and-soul effort, and you can’t put that kind of effort toward something you don’t care about.
When you’ve got it right, you’ll feel your goal become all-consuming. Surrender to your goal. Let it obsess you.
At some point, we all have a dream job in mind, but few of us follow that desire. Instead, we use five excuses to murder our dreams:
If you want success in the area of your passion, you need to destroy these excuses. Most often, there are creative ways around your problems.
When you set a goal, it becomes like a GPS navigation guide. It guides you on how to act in new situations, what to say, how to respond to new information. It keeps you on course to reach your target.
Successful people learn that progress toward their goal is made one step at a time. Every big accomplishment is the result of a series of little accomplishments. Marathons are won one step at a time. Cathedrals are built one brick at a time.
Goals need the structure of a step-by-step method. Think of a writer tasked with a book project of 250,000 words. It would feel overwhelming, but if she concentrated on writing one paragraph at a time, the book would “write itself” in a matter of months.
When it comes to your personal goal, remember to take things one day at a time. Little victories will fuel you toward your big goal. Each accomplishment will give you a sense of pride and propel you forward.
How do you set goals for yourself? Let’s start from the high level, and zoom down into little goals.
Envision the most successful version of yourself 10 years from now. What do you want to have achieved? Try these questions:
(Shortform note: Try to take this in two steps. At first, try not to first think about specific details, like what exact job you want, which specific friends you want. Instead, start with general principles - what kind of job do you want? What kinds of friends do you want?
Then think about specific details to make it real. Imagine the ideal job, )
Don’t be afraid to dream big. You won’t achieve big things if you don’t first set big goals.
You can improve yourself a little at a time, as well. Successful people often set a series of small goals for their own self-improvement. Working on the little things gets you in shape for the big things.
Set a 30 day plan focused on small changes.
Write down your self-improvement goals and give yourself 30 days to work on these improvements. Commit to doing all these things by this time next month.
Then take a look at your progress. You’ll see that building positive new habits and breaking old, negative habits is a day-to-day process that yields incredible rewards, little by little.
Think big picture about what you want 10 years from now. Picture your most successful possible self.
Work: What kind of work am I doing? How much money do I want to make? How much responsibility do I want? How much public recognition do I want?
Home: How comfortably do I want my family to live? What do we want from our free time? What kind of relationship do I have with my partner or spouse? What do I hope for my children?
Social: What are my closest friends like? How connected do I feel to my community? With what types of people do I spend my time?
Are there any clear action steps you should take to move closer to this future?
To meet your big goals, start by setting smaller goals. Create a 30-day self-improvement plan to gain positive new habits and break old, negative habits. After you set these, commit to doing them for the next 30 days.
What negative habits do you want to break? Write down two to four.
What positive habits do you want to acquire? Write down two to four.
How can you increase your value at work? Write down two to four actions.
How can you increase your value at home? Write down two to four actions.
Success and the ability to lead others go hand in hand. You don’t find success alone; rather, the support of others helps lift you to success.
There are four important principles of leadership. When you master these tools, others will respond to you as a leader and support your ideas.
If you want to gather the support of others, you must look at the world through their eyes. Ask yourself, “What would I think of this situation if I were the other person?” Consider what other people care about. This will give you the key to convincing them.
Consider these situations of seeing through the eyes of people you want to influence.
Constantly ask yourself, “If I were the other person, how would I react to this situation?” Then take the course of action that would connect with you if you were the other person.
There are several types of leaders.
In any difficult situation, ask yourself, “What is the human way to handle this?”
Words only go so far. Show that you care about people through your actions.
It’s relatively easy to maintain the status quo in a work environment. But true leaders who keep pushing for improvement are rare and incredibly valuable.
To develop a progress mindset:
Other people will follow your example. Think, “What would this organization be like if everyone in it were just like me?” If you raise the bar, others will follow.
This progress mindset is useful outside of work as well.
People in leadership roles are exceptionally busy, but often they have one thing in common: they spend quality time alone with their own thoughts. Carving out time to spend in uninterrupted thought helps you figure out solutions to problems, plan courses of action and unleash creative thinking.
Don’t be the type of person who can’t stand being alone. When you consult with too many people, your own vision gets clouded and crowded. You won’t know what you independently think.
When setting aside time to think, try two types of thinking:
Become a better leader and set a good example for those you lead.
Think about something you have to convince another person of. Put yourself in that person’s mind. What do they care about? How would they react to what you’re saying? How can you change what you say to be more convincing?
Think of a time when you didn’t solve a situation the “human way.” What happened? How could you be more human in the future?
How can you set a better example of looking for improvements and insisting on high standards? Describe one specific way in detail.
We’ve covered a lot of concepts and suggestions. They’re not easy to remember in the moment when you need them most. Here are a few specific situations that might require you to think big.
When other people try to bring you down:
When you don’t believe you have what it takes:
When you get dragged into an argument:
When you encounter a setback: